World snooker chief Barry Hearn apologised on Twitter on Monday morning as the website selling tickets for next year's championship at the Crucible crashed due to high demand.

Fans could book tickets through cruciblesnooker.com, but the website could not cope with the sheer number of fans wishing to get their hands on a ticket.

Tickets for next year's tournament went on sale at 9am, and passes for the latter stages were expected to sell out quickly.

But fans were met with a message apologising for the inconvenience, and requesting they check back at midday.

"We are extremely sorry to report that due to a technical difficulty we have experienced a significant problem with the sales for the World Snooker Championship 2018," the message said.

Fans were met with this message

Higgins and Selby are contesting this year's Crucible final (Image: Visual China Group)

"We have taken online sales down temporarily whilst we resolve the issue. There are seats allocated to online sales which will only be made available to people purchasing in this way. Check back again at 12pm for an update.

"Once again, we sincerely apologise for the inconvenience that this will cause and thank you for bearing with us."

Hearn posted on Twitter: "As part of our deal with Sheffield to host world champs we must use their ticket services. Clearly they have problems for which I apologise."

The official World Snooker account added: "Apologies for the problems with online ticket bookings this morning, caused by extremely high demand. We are working to resolve this ASAP."

Fans fumed on social media as they attempted to secure their seats at the Crucible for next year.

Higgins has a 10-7 lead in the final (Image: Visual China Group)

Alex Pettener tweeted: "It's a joke. My wife was 89 in the queue and all that will be out of the window! Beaten bu the touts last year in the Crucible queue too!"

Michael Doran posted: "Load of nonsense. Did you not realise the servers would be under pressure with the demand for tickets? People up early wasting their time."

The World Snooker Championship is in its 40th year at the Crucible, and a deal has been struck to keep it in Sheffield for another decade.

John Higgins and Mark Selby are contesting this year's final.

Scot Higgins has a 10-7 lead going into today's afternoon session, with the match set to conclude this evening.